ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways Islamophobia is manifested in the post-communist Albanian public discourse. It argues that in Albania, Islamophobia is mainly conceptualized within the framework of the political myth of ‘return to Europe’ or ‘Eurotheism’, i.e. the attempt by the Albanian secular elite to forge a new post-communist nation-building narrative in which Albanian identity is constructed as quintessentially European and Christian. This new national narrative is at the core of the contemporary Islamophobic public discourse where Islam and Muslim culture are excluded from playing any significant public role and, on the contrary, are perceived as the main obstacle to the fulfilment of the European and Christian Albanian identity. The chapter also traces the extent to which Albanian public intellectuals have utilized global mainstream Islamophobic paradigms, like Huntington’s clash of civilization, Islamo-fascism or European Judeo-Christian identity, to apply to the particular Albanian context. The appropriation of global Islamophobic conceptual frameworks is crucial for the Albanian public intellectuals’ attempt to relegate Islam to a marginal place within the Albanian society and for their construction of exclusivist strategies that exclude Islam from exerting any significant role in the post-communist debates on the identity formation and nation-building narrative.
